Dolores SÁNCHEZ-AGUILERA, University of Barcelona, Spain
It has become commonplace that in the development or consumption of any tourist experience three phases must be taken into account: the 'before' or the preparation of the trip; the 'during' or the in situ materialization of the tourist experience; and the 'after', which is the more or less gratifying memory of the experience.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of the year 2020 has not only caused a drastic decrease in tourist flow, reflected in all kinds of indicators and the preferred object of study of tourism research, but has also brought about radical changes in less visible aspects such as the promotion and provision of tourist services and information in urban destinations. In this sense, the degree or level of tourist satisfaction during the development of any tourist experience depends not only on the consumption of the tourist product itself, but also on the greater or lesser quality of the information and services that each destination makes available through different means: face-to-face or virtual advice, the possibility of booking or contracting specific products, and the greater or lesser availability and quality of information material related to the destination. In this paper we propose to analyze how the provision of tourist information has evolved -or changed- in five Spanish urban destinations since the pandemic. The aim is to analyze how the process of adaptation to this new reality has taken place in aspects such as changes in the approach to the contents of tourist information; the modifications introduced in the service charters; the physical and operational changes registered by the tourist offices and in the edition, publication and dissemination of promotional materials, such as the change from paper brochures to the generalized use of QR codes. In this case, it can be said that a before and an after can be detected in relation to the contents and provision of urban tourism information.
Mots clés : Urban Tourism|Destination|Digital Transition|Tourist Info|COVID-19
A105372JF